Florida pastor needs score card to baptize sextuplets

March 31, 2008|By Lisa Buie, St. Petersburg Times

LAND O'LAKES -- Who could blame the Rev. Ron Aubin for needing crib notes? He has baptized countless babies over the years, but this was his first time performing the sacrament on sextuplets, all dressed alike.

"I've done twins," he said just before the ceremony began Saturday at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church. To help him out and increase the cute factor, each Byler baby wore a white keepsake bib embroidered with their name and the date.

The five boys, Brady, Eli, Ryan, Jackson and Charlie, wore them over new white suits and ties from Sears, while lone girl MacKenzie wore the same white gown used by her 4-year-old sister, Zoe, and her 29-year-old mom, Karoline.

The babies were baptized with water and anointed with oil after Aubin stressed to family members their responsibility in setting a Christian example.

"It's where you're going that the six of them are going," he said. "You didn't bring these six babies into the world to be lost."

The baptism was a rare public appearance for the Wesley Chapel brood since they were delivered by Caesarean section Sept. 1.

Almost three months premature, their weights ranged from 2 pounds, 5 ounces, to 3 pounds when they became Florida's first set of live sextuplets. The last baby, Charlie, went home the day before Thanksgiving.

Since then, three of them -- Charlie, Jackson and Ryan -- have been hospitalized a few days for pneumonia. Otherwise, all have been healthy, though Charlie and Jackson still require oxygen.

Brady, the heaviest of the bunch, now weighs more than 16 pounds. MacKenzie, the smallest, weighs about 12 pounds.